The Musican and The Apprentice
by Childe of the Darklands
Summary: Deym shows up out of the blue in Radiant Garden, to the suprise and interested of fourteen year old Ienzo, who's blind. Not YAOI, Post-BBS, continuing series.


This was what Deym would call a bad scenario. Not worst-he'd had far worse on some really crazy worlds...Like that guy who had been demanding woolongs for hitching a ride with them...Or the ex-Browncoats who wanted credits for passage...or just about any other time he ran into somebody and they were putting out their palms for cash. Still, ending up on a random world, no money from any universe to his name, and praying the world didn't have any retrograde laws against music wasn't easy-going thinking. At least it _seemed_ a peaceable enough world. Some talking animals, funny looking places, but no Gatling guns blazing or military displays, which were always bad signs. He paced along the streets, holding his sitar slung over his shoulder like a hobo's sack, and came upon a fanciful, elaborate castle.

"Whoa...Alright, this place has got some money, then....Some...big money..." he muttered to himself as he stared up at the immense construction. Already his mind was working sixty, imagining the bulging pantries and cellars, and constantly working kitchen...much better than protein packs or nothing...He was always sneaky....

_Don't think like this Deym. You're mostly honest, these people could be fascist pigs who will murder you for all you know, and you will not sneak in some back way to the luscious roasts and wines and dangnabbit my stomach is thinking for me. Come on, Deym, listen to your brain, not your growling stomach!_ The internal berating he was giving himself did not help his hunger pangs, unfortunately. He was skilled at picking locks, sneaking around, and generally being the homeless wandering musician he was. That didn't mean he had to actually pick locks or sneak around. Still....He'd been chased off, unpaid, too many times...

"Who's down there?" a single clear voice broke through his thoughts, causing him to look upwards at the person leaning out the window and speaking. He looked about thirteen or so, with messy bluish hair-a strange shade, though Deym had seen stranger-hiding one side of his face. He was wearing simple clothes, but oh, how rich the fabric looked, the bright purple color of his ascot, his clean, pressed shirt. Deym glanced down at his threadbare garments and grew a bit embarrassed, hoping the kid wasn't looking at him too closely.

"Er...I'm just a wandering musician...not really anybody...at least not to a prince like you...I'll be off..." he began to edge back, away from the castle he had been considering taking a consumables from only moments before.

The boy laughed. "You think I'm a _prince_? Hardly that! Here, I'll get Even and we can talk to each other properly, instead of shouting through windows." He disappeared before Deym got to ask what exactly an Even was, or why he wanted to talk to a homeless bum, or why it was so funny to think a teenager living in a castle was a prince.

Meanwhile, inside the castle, Ienzo was rushing along, his staff clattering against the ground. He has heard the man out there, and the idea of someone new was positvely serendipity to the teenager.

"Even! Even, can you open the-" He began as he skittered into a room and a chair, toppling it, himself, and the man who was seated in the chair onto the ground.

"What? Who? When? Oh, Ienzo. I thought I told you not to wander without someone to help you," the man named Even started to scold as he stood up, hauling up Ienzo as well, and placing the staff back in the boy's hand. Ienzo waved his other hand dismissively.

"Even, you worry too much. I'll be fine. But I was getting some fresh air, and I cracked open a window, and there's a musician out there! I told him I'd get you to open the gate for me, since you know where the key is. He's funny. He thought I was a prince!"

"Calm down, Ien, calm down," said Even in a fatherly way. "I'm not sure whether this is alright..."

"Please, Even? Please? He seemed nice. Just this once?"

Even sighed. "Oh....Alright," he said, relenting.

"Great! Let's go, he's probably wondering why I'm taking so long."

"Okay, then. Grab onto to my arm. and we'll go."

"Even, I'm fine, I can get around with my staff," protested Ienzo. "You're so overprotective."

"Ienzo, it's for you own good."

"Oh, fine. If it makes you happy. Let's just hurry!"

"Okay, okay."

Ienzo burst out of the front gate after Even opened it. "Mr. Musician! You still here? Sorry I took so long." Deym looked up front where he was sitting, only about fifteen feet from the kid. He was wondering how he didn't see him in plain sight. Behind the boy, heading off a short distance to examine some plants, was a man who looked to be in his thirties or forties, but had longish blond hair, like a woman. He reminded Deym vaguely of a girl who cheated him out of 50 strips of latinum once. Strange his thoughts kept returning to money. Or maybe not. Either way, Deym stood up, stretched his legs and walked over to the boy.

"I'm right here, kid. Look up."

Ienzo raised his head. "Can't, really..." he muttered softly as Deym was greeted by the shocking sight of blank, white eyes.

"You're....blind?" He said softly, a little disturbed by the blankness of the teenager's eyes.

Ienzo smiled, a bit sadly. "Yes. A few years now."

"I'm...I'm really sorry..." How Deym was filled with sympathy for the kid, blessed if he knew. He'd been out for himself most of his life, not caring to much about others. Well, there was that Bajoran girl a while back...but that wasn't more than a tryst...Here, he felt sorry for the teen. He looked the bookish type, too...Probably was really broken up when he lost his sight...

"It's okay. What's done is done, you don't have to be sorry." What Ienzo would never admit to anyone is how he hated it when people felt bad for him. Even Even and the others that were here in the castle acted so pityingly to him. It made him feel weaker than he was. It made him feel like a little kid again, crying on Even's knee when he got a cut, or clutching Master Ansem's hand when he got scared of the shadows at night. He didn't want man to make him feel like that, so he hastily changed the subject. "I just realized I don't know your name. I'm Ienzo."

"Hm? Oh, my name's Deym, but nobody uses it.'

"Huh? Why not?"

He shrugged. "Why'd someone build a relationship with a traveling musician? He'd just be gone tomorrow."

"Oh...Isn't it lonely, Deym? Traveling around like that?"

"Sometimes, I guess. I do meet a lot of different people though. And it gives one of the greatest things in life."

"What's that?"

"Freedom, kid. I can do anything I want, short of, y'know, murdering people." _Or stealing food._

"That sounds nice."

"It is, Ienzo, it is." _Except when my stomach starts trying to boss me around._ Deym looked around again. "Hey, I just realized I have no idea where I am. You jump through a warp and end up someplace totally random. Mind telling me where I am?"

"Oh, I see. Figuratively, of course," said the teenager, a trace of a smile on his face. Deym wondered how he could joke about it. "This is Radiant Garden."

"Radiant Garden, Huh...."

"Deym, what instrument do you play?"

"What, are you blind or-" Ienzo face crumpled, turning into a very upset look and Deym realized how stupid that was. "Oh gods I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking!"

"No...It's alright..."

"No, it is not alright. That was mean of me." Again, Deym was amazed at how he felt so sad for a person he didn't know even five minutes ago. "But you wanted to know what I play? It's an instrument called a sitar. I'm good with most stringed instruments. Well, not pianos. But they hardly count." Deym realized he was rambling a bit. "You like music?"

Ienzo nodded. "I love music. Well, Braig's music is too loud for me. But I like music a lot otherwise."

"Well...You want me to play you a song?"

Ienzo's eyes lit up. "Would you?"

Deym smiled. He liked it when kids were happy. "Sure. This is an old folk song from Earth-That-Was."He took a deep breath and began to play a haunting tune, negleting to use the mizraab, which

"I know some people who live in the north  
They've lived there since forever and many years before  
They live in the wilderness where few people go  
But they say that in that country, no one can be alone

For the land knows you're there  
And the land knows you're there  
And the rocks and trees and rivers  
Give you friendship and care

And every rock and tree has a name of its own  
You call out that you're coming as you journey through the land  
You never can be lonely, alone though you may seem  
For a tree is like a person and it keeps you company

For the land knows you're there  
And the land knows you're there  
And the rocks and trees and rivers  
Give you friendship and care

You give a happy greeting when you come to a spring  
As if it were a relative or a long-lost friend  
And when you've sat and rested and drunk your fill  
You give the spring a Thank you and a fond farewell

For the land knows you're there  
And the land knows you're there  
And the rocks and trees and rivers  
Give you friendship and care

When you come into a new land that you have never known  
You bend and touch the soil and you tell it why you've come  
You tell it where you're going, you tell it where you've been  
For they say that if you're kind to it the land will be your friend

For the land knows you're there  
And the land knows you're there  
And the rocks and trees and rivers  
Give you friendship and care

When you are old, your earth walk near his end  
You take a final journey to say farewell to the land  
You tells it not to miss you and he asks it not to mourn  
But to learn to live without you when you is dead and gone

For the land knows you're there  
And the land knows you're there  
And the rocks and trees and rivers  
Give you friendship and care

This northern land is healthy, on love and care it thrives  
But back down in my home town, they forgot the land's alive  
They've polluted every river and they leveled every hill  
But underneath the concrete, the land is living still

For the land knows you're there  
And the land knows you're there  
And the rocks and trees and rivers  
Give you friendship and care." He finished out the song with a little showoff ending, barely noticing his fingertips were now bleeding. It had been along time since he had played for the pure joy of it, and for the first time in a long time he really felt the freedom he claimed to have.


End file.
